They’re baaaa-aack. Does avant-garde Writer/Director M. Night Shyamalan suffer delusions that he can break new ground with part 3 of his trilogy? He wants us to wonder if superheroes and super villains live among us or within us. As psychiatrist Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) contends in this film, these seemingly extraordinary individuals may just suffer from “delusions of grandeur.” This film grounds itself in the comic book ethos; that there’s an intersection between comic books and real life. Those are the rules that Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) has followed as a mass murderer in Shyamalan’s first two installments: Unbreakable and Split.
James McAvoy pulls out the stops as Kevin Wendell Crumb and host of so many different personalities locked in his weird brain. They include Patricia (the nurturing matriarch), Hedwig (the forever 9-year-old boy), the Beast (the most frightening and physical) and about 20 more, all different. Besides McAvoy’s mental exercise being able to change characters with split second speed, one after the other varying speech and attitude,
Completely uninhibited, McAvoy handles this extremely physical role as the beast climbing walls, running on all fours and more athletic antics. He trained 6 months to get thoroughly muscle-bound. McAvoy is so over the top as this character that it was good Shyamalan tried to balance him with David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and Elijah, Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson). They help dial the frenzy down a notch.
This is the third film to be released over a nearly 20 year stretch to make the trilogy trying to bring closure to the machinations of the three main characters. Dr. Stapler (Paulson) is brought in to convince these three extraordinary weirdos that they are not as extraordinary as they seem and that their super powers are really more symptoms of mental illness.
Samuel L. Jackson rolls through the film in a wheelchair as Elijah/Mr. Glass. Jackson has the least physical and frantic of the roles. Much easier than what McAvoy and Willis have to go through. Mr.Glass is the most fragile and the most dangerous. He’s got a super brain. Elijah’s Mother (Charlayne Woodard) is back again to support her son. Shyamalan uses footage from the past films to show her and the others younger, some of which had been left on the cutting room floor. Interesting that he was able to get his hands on those scenes because he purposely produced the others with different studios. Shyamalan liked different studios in the mix to make it seem as though the films would not look like sequels but completely fresh.
Bruce Willis is stoic as David Dunn, the Overseer, with his son Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark- Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.). David is a vigilante hero trying to use telepathic powers to sniff out criminal activity. The scene where he is trying to save 4 cheerleaders chained up by the Beast in a warehouse kind of reeks of creepy exploitation. We think he takes advantage of that situation.
Clark was a little boy when he appeared in the first film. You get to see him in flashback and then all grown up in this one 20 years later. Shyamalan likes to put himself in his films, and here, he gives himself a pretty lengthy scene with Dennis and Joseph in Dunn’s security shop. We were half expecting him to have some kind of super power that figured in this flick.
The only character who can calm the Beast is Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy). Her scenes with McAvoy are super intense. They have good chemistry showing an obvious emotional connection but the director keeps the tension going, not knowing if Kevin, the Beast, will all-of-a-sudden turn on her.
Shyamalan wasn’t sure when he first talked with Paulson if he was going to make the Psychiatrist a man or a woman. She lobbied to work with him and looks great. Her wardrobe is so sophisticated, especially in contrast to everyone else looking so haggard in the film. Is she taking care of her patients or is Dr. Stapler their greatest threat?
We see the superpowers of these three characters and she seems to be trying to convince them that humans don’t have superpowers by using elaborate technology to control them. Shyamalan creates a stark scene in a big hallway where she faces all three of her subjects/patients. The only one chained up is the superhero, David. Is Dr. Stapler and the director trying to make a statement here?
Shyamalan sets up the ultimate twist. Elijah, the Beast and David end up in a brutal battle in the parking lot with Dr. Staple right there that Shyamalan orchestrates to show his big reveal. Without giving it away, we witness an unexpected twist and one that is less than satisfying. The twist revealed after building to this explosive scene, reveals the motivation behind Dr. Staple, and it’s a let down.
At the end of this film, most of the audience stayed through the credits hoping to see one more scene to put some kind of a bow, or shed some light on Shyamalan’s earnest work on this trilogy, and maybe set up a sequel. The movie’s tag line is “Real villains are among us. Real heroes are within us,” but with all the machinations and misdirections that go nowhere, real satisfaction eluded us. Glass shatters Shyamalan’s brittle attempt to come up with another mind-bending winner.
Universal 110 Minutes PG-13
